Starting from Chapter 102, the medicine used in the free clinic must be consumed on the spot.
Yao Xiaoyu originally thought that she would not be able to sleep with Tao Xiaoxiao lying next to her because she was used to sleeping alone. In fact, she fell asleep in just a few breaths and woke up when it was already dawn. She went out to wash up and just made it to dinner time.
Putting aside the taste of the food, the treatment provided by the village was quite good. Steamed rice was prepared early in the morning. Although there was no meat, there were two large bowls of scrambled eggs. Pickled vegetables and the like were placed in a large basin on the table for everyone to eat as they pleased. Yao Xiaoyu casually picked up a couple of bites and began to ponder whether the meals were a subsidy from the hospital or if the village itself was wealthy. She then came up with a few small fragments that couldn't form a complete story.
What are you thinking about?
Maria's voice came from the side. Yao Xiaoyu came back to her senses and realized that everyone had almost finished eating. Fortunately, she hadn't put too much rice in the bowl when she first served it, and the bowl was empty after a few quick scoops.
They didn't need to clean up the dishes. After everyone gathered, they went to the medical point to work. The so-called medical point was nothing more than a hastily built shed with bamboo poles. They were willing to let people stay at their homes, but it was not allowed to come to their homes for treatment, for fear of passing on the illness's energy or bringing bad luck.
They arrived very early, but there was already a long line of patients. Yao Xiaoyu listened to them and knew that many of them had been queuing here since last night. Among them were elderly people and children with worn-out and thin clothes. Those who were in better health walked over by themselves, while those who were really inconvenient to move were carried by door panels.
This is the second use Yao Xiaoyu discovered for the door panel, besides its original purpose—the previous one was last night when a tall boy put it on two long benches and made it into a makeshift bed.
"Anna, Jenny, you and they are responsible for the diagnosis and bandaging of external injuries."
"Peilan, Banxia, you two work with Lin Lang to take pulses, perform acupuncture, and prescribe medicine."
"And you, you..."
Dr. Maria had extensive experience in providing free medical services. Seeing everyone looking helpless, like chicks without their mother, she quickly began assigning tasks. After directing the doctors and assistants, she called on the people outside, and soon divided the patients into several groups based on their general condition, maximizing the efficiency of the medical care.
Yao Xiaoyu didn't participate; she just watched from the sidelines. But the more she looked, the heavier her heart felt. She had seen photos of poor people from the late Qing Dynasty, but the impact of the blurry black and white images was far less shocking than seeing living people today.
Many people who come to see the doctor are missing fingers or toes, either from frostbite in winter or from farm work or other accidents. But in their eyes, these are not considered illnesses, just like a back that can't be straightened. They usually ask about other things, and only mention it casually if the wound is not healing.
Swelling and deformed joints, sores the size of eggs on the body, and half of the face unable to move when speaking... These are not considered illnesses in their eyes. What they are most concerned about are the symptoms that affect or even prevent them from using their strength, such as a constant, knife-like pain in the stomach, only being able to do light work like sowing seeds, or being unable to grip a hoe properly and thus unable to farm.
Jenny diagnosed many people with arthritis and couldn't help but ask them why they didn't seek treatment earlier. They only said they were poor. When asked how they dealt with it in the past, they said they just endured it.
Yao Xiaoyu heard more than one person repeatedly confirming whether the medicine was really free. Their condition was already very bad, but they still insisted that they would not be treated if they had to pay.
A man with a tumor the size of half his head on the side of his neck walked over with his head tilted and asked the doctor if it could be treated. After examining him, Anna and her sister said it could be removed, but he would need to have surgery at the hospital. The man didn't even ask about the cost and silently turned and left.
The villagers next to them smiled apologetically at the two sisters, saying that the man's land was all rented and he really didn't have the money for treatment, hoping they wouldn't hold it against him. Yao Xiaoyu looked at their smiling faces and felt a tightness in her chest.
Some children were brought to the doctor by their families. They had big heads and big bellies, but their hands and feet were almost skinny. Their mothers said that their children often complained of bone pain. Everyone knew that they were malnourished and there were remedies available—eating more meat and eggs. But looking at the faces of both mother and child, who were equally thin...
"Bring the child over."
Yao Xiaoyu sighed as she prepared to go back and boil water to give herself a snack since she hadn't eaten enough. She hung the small pot, no bigger than her palm, on the fire, poured water from her water bag into it, sprinkled in the sugar that had been divided into small packets, stirred it a couple of times, and then poured it into a bamboo tube.
The small pot was specially customized for this trip, in case she wasn't used to eating large pot meals and wanted to have a snack on her own. Unexpectedly, the first time she used it was to make hot sugar water.
"Drink it."
Yao Xiaoyu didn't say much. While her mother was still hesitating, the child timidly took the drink, tentatively touched it to her lips, and her eyes lit up when she tasted it. She then gulped it down.
"You child..."
The mother wanted to say something, but the child propped his head up and whispered in her ear:
"Mom, my leg doesn't hurt anymore."
That girl has a kind heart; she doesn't want to cause trouble for others.
The mother's eyes immediately reddened. She hurriedly carried her daughter to a secluded corner, licked the bamboo tube, and tasted a subtle sweetness on her tongue.
"Did that lady give you sugar water?"
Seeing her daughter shake her head blankly, and then quietly ask what sugar water was, a few salty tears welled up in the mother's eyes—that's right, her daughter had never even eaten corn, so how would she know what sweetness was?
She took her daughter home, only to find her husband lying on the bed like a corpse. When he saw her coming, he glared at her and yelled at her to go cook.
"I want to eat eggs, two fried in oil, otherwise I'll go to the village chief and sell the house."
A perfectly healthy man who does nothing but eat and sleep; at the slightest inconvenience, he threatens to sell his house and land; and he has blackened teeth from eating too much sugar...
The woman went to the kitchen and scraped the bottom of the jar vigorously, putting the tiny bit of lard onto a spoon. She glanced at her daughter, who was helping to tend the fire, then suddenly lowered her head and asked:
"Will Mother take you away?"
Her life may be over, but her daughter cannot rot in the mud!
...
Yao Xiaoyu divided the sugar into fifteen equal portions, then borrowed an earthenware pot to boil water. After the water boiled, she poured in one portion of sugar and stirred it, then waved to the children who were peeking in.
How many children are there on your side?
She originally intended to give the sweet water to those in need, but seeing that everyone there was nutritious, she simply stopped being picky and let the children have some sweetness.
A cup of sugar water is of little use to a depleted body, but it can make the mouth happy. In this world, human life is sometimes less valuable than a straw, and Yao Xiaoyu hopes to add a little sweetness to their memories.
The children, dressed in tattered clothes and barefoot in worn-out straw sandals, scurried away, only to return in a short while, lining up one by one to receive their sweet soup. Yao Xiaoyu didn't care whether they held cups, bowls, or jars; she gave each child a spoonful, and they stood aside until all the children had finished drinking before she could leave.
Yao Xiaoyu couldn't remember what so many children looked like. Before this rule was set, several children had been led around once and then ran back. The other children felt it was unfair. The children who were exposed were very angry and started fighting. It wasn't a joke; it was a real fight that drew blood.
Ultimately, it comes down to a lack of resources.
The lunch was delivered and eaten in shifts. The patients did not ask the doctors to work non-stop, but everyone couldn't bear to make them wait any longer. The village chief killed two chickens and stir-fried a large pot of vegetables, showing great sincerity, but the taste was terrible. Yao Xiaoyu did not intend to make herself suffer, so she gave her share of meat to Tao Xiaoxiao and ate the leftover beef and fried dough sticks with rice.
That evening, Yao Xiaoyu didn't participate in the food-grabbing activity at all. She took a sausage and asked the village chief to bury it in the rice while steaming it. Apart from the lack of leafy greens making it a bit nutritionally unbalanced, the taste was just as good.
The next day, she got up early again to see a doctor. The meal was still the same three dishes: white rice, pickled vegetables, and fried eggs. Yao Xiaoyu paid extra to have the village chief's family make her two fried eggs—fried eggs and fried eggs, which were the only two dishes that family could make well. Yao Xiaoyu also paid extra to buy a chicken and have the village help her kill and chop it up, preparing for a special lunch.
She made the right decision by bringing her own condiments!
***
"One ounce of whole dandelion, three mace of licorice root... boil down to one bowl of water."
Yao Xiaoyu responded, took the lotus leaf packet, poured the herbs into the small ceramic pot, and put the lotus leaf back on the table—these lotus leaves would be used again to wrap the medicine later. She still didn't quite understand how she had started brewing the medicine, but with Tao Xiaoxiao helping to add firewood and watch the fire, she wasn't too busy, so Yao Xiaoyu didn't leave.
"Doctor, should I take it home and cook it myself..."
A woman kindly offered her help, but Yao Xiaoyu shook her head with a cold face.
"It will take a while to brew the medicine. You can leave your name here and go back to work first. I will have someone call you when the medicine is ready."
The woman hesitated for a moment, then asked with some difficulty.
"Can't we just cook it all and have my child take it home to eat?"
Yao Xiaoyu shook her head even more resolutely, looking into the woman's eyes and emphasizing:
"The person must finish drinking it on the spot, and we will also check their mouth."
Yao Xiaoyu wasn't sure if it was just her imagination, but before the woman's disappointed expression appeared, her first reaction was relief.
Without much thought, Yao Xiaoyu quickly jotted down the woman's name and focused her attention on the new medicine, as the new lotus leaf sachet was already in place and the next earthenware jar was about to arrive.
Yesterday afternoon, she helped watch the fire for a while. Someone suggested taking the medicine home to brew, which she thought would be convenient, but Dr. Maria sternly refused. Maria was too busy to explain the reason to her at the time, and only quietly explained it to her in the evening.
"It would be convenient to take it back so they can brew it themselves, but they might not necessarily drink it."
The phrase "may not drink" doesn't refer to disliking the cheapness of the medicine—the medicines used in the free clinics are also provided free of charge, and to save costs, the medicines chosen each time are those that are inexpensive and address common ailments.
“If you take the herbal medicine package back, they might sell it directly to someone else, or break it up and sell it. You can also sell the decocted medicine back home.”
The medical clinic always brings as much medicine as possible, but there are always more patients than medicine available. Some people who don't receive any medicine, or those who want to keep some for later use, and those who are slightly better off, will always spend money to buy medicine from people with the same symptoms.
"...Is it really necessary?!"
This was all beyond Yao Xiaoyu's imagination. Maria simply smiled wryly and nodded; she hadn't thought it was that bad either, but...
“Some people don’t give up their medication voluntarily, but they don’t dare to say it.”
So in the end, they simply made a clean break—they had to brew the medicine, drink it on the spot, and then open their mouths to check and make sure they had really swallowed it before they could leave.
...
The woman, carrying a hoe, walked towards the fields, unable to suppress a happy smile. The medicine had to be taken on the spot, and she no longer had to worry about being sold by her father-in-law's family for money.
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The author's note: The rule about taking medicine reminded me of the egg incident, where eggs and milk donated to girls were required by their families to be taken back for other family members to enjoy or to be sold. After the authorities learned about this, they issued a new rule that the eggs and milk must be eaten and drunk on the spot. I vaguely remember seeing reports about this incident, but I couldn't find any related news. I only know about sanitary napkins donated to girls being used by men as insoles, and the Spring Bud Project. How strange.
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